Movie Review – Green Lantern

Years ago I visited a comic convention in London with my siblings. Warner Bros. had Ryan Reynold’s mug plastered everywhere as they pushed Green Lantern, the next big thing from DC and—I’m paraphrasing here—possibly this generation’s Star Wars! My brother stood on a stage and recited the Green Lantern Corps oath to win some goodies whilst the four of us dressed in the Lantern colours with matching rings. We were all rather excited.

A few months later, none of us admitted that what we’d just seen was disappointing. Warner Bros. had already given us Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. With the MCU underway too this was meant to be an amazing time for comic book movies. How could they get this one wrong? We focused on the positives and moved on.

It’s been a while now so I thought I’d give it another shot when it came up on TV. You know those thoughts that we ignored? They came back strong!

Warner Bros. proved that they could hack apart and spoil a film in their quest to quickly have a universe to hang more films on way before Batman v Superman.

Green Lantern is a wasted opportunity and an utter lemon of a movie. From Jordan’s bodged origin story through to his oddly disembodied head, it completely misses the mark. Plot holes the entire Corps could fly through are compounded by stupendously dumb decisions from supposedly experienced warriors. Boil it down and it’s the story of three kids dealing with extra-terrestrials in different ways. Space opera? You be forgiven for thinking you were watching a soap opera with dialogue that boils down to ‘you’re just afraid to admit you’re afraid’.

There’s an admirable attempt to make a truly alien feeling suit, but the quality of the CGI doesn’t back up the concept. It’s even commented on in the film how it’s not much of a disguise.

Rarely do I say a film needed to be longer, but this one should be. The extended version (sound familiar?) makes it slightly better but we’re still given very little to go on, with important scenes like Hal learning to use his powers given very little time. Why couldn’t things be held onto for another film? Why was it all so rushed? I can tell you why.